A few weeks ago I was asked about tofu: do you like it and what do you do with it? A few years ago I would have said I didn’t like it one bit, but all that’s changed. Why? Well, eating tofu in the Vietnamese restaurants of Kingsland Road and its environs in London, for one thing. And, also, wising up to the fact that tofu comes in differing textures: from ‘silken’ and soft versions to firm. Our ETP tofu cooking requires the bean curd to be knocked about in a pan so we look for the firm varieties. Sometimes we marinade it first and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we chop it up into bite-size pieces and sometimes we slice a block into a large slab. Smaller pieces become more crispy when fried – good for throwing into soups and for dishes where there is a fair bit of sauce. The large slabs, while crisping at the edges, also retain a soft centre, which can make for an appealing contrast of textures. A distant memory makes me want to liken tofu in our dishes to pork crackling. But I could be wrong – all that is more than half a life ago.
Below we have two recent examples of tofu dishes we’ve made. First, chopped to bite size, is an earthy tofu dish with broccoli, shiitake mushrooms and noodles. Below that is a fragrant marinated tofu dish with oyster mushrooms, salad and rice.
There are some other ideas for tofu on this site too (you do use the ingredients list to search out recipes, don’t you?) Have a look here, here and https://earthtoplate.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/last-nights-dinner-tofu-with-lemongrass-and-chilli/.
Earth to plate
Ways with tofu
A few weeks ago I was asked about tofu: do you like it and what do you do with it? A few years ago I would have said I didn’t like it one bit, but all that’s changed. Why? Well, eating tofu in the Vietnamese restaurants of Kingsland Road and its environs in London, for one thing. And, also, wising up to the fact that tofu comes in differing textures: from ‘silken’ and soft versions to firm. Our ETP tofu cooking requires the bean curd to be knocked about in a pan so we look for the firm varieties. Sometimes we marinade it first and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we chop it up into bite-size pieces and sometimes we slice a block into a large slab. Smaller pieces become more crispy when fried – good for throwing into soups and for dishes where there is a fair bit of sauce. The large slabs, while crisping at the edges, also retain a soft centre, which can make for an appealing contrast of textures. A distant memory makes me want to liken tofu in our dishes to pork crackling. But I could be wrong – all that is more than half a life ago.
Below we have two recent examples of tofu dishes we’ve made. First, chopped to bite size, is an earthy tofu dish with broccoli, shiitake mushrooms and noodles. Below that is a fragrant marinated tofu dish with oyster mushrooms, salad and rice.
There are some other ideas for tofu on this site too (you do use the ingredients list to search out recipes, don’t you?) Have a look here, here and https://earthtoplate.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/last-nights-dinner-tofu-with-lemongrass-and-chilli/.
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